


Fallen Angel

by Rhianne



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Amnesia, Episode Related, Episode: s07e01 Fallen, Gen, Gen Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-04
Updated: 2012-06-04
Packaged: 2017-11-06 19:33:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/422428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhianne/pseuds/Rhianne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How can a man trust himself if he doesn't know who he is?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fallen Angel

He tells them that he remembers nothing of who he was, that all memory of life before he awoke in the forest is gone.

He is lying.

It’s true that he doesn’t remember his name, and that he can’t regale his companions in the village – he can’t yet bring himself to call them friends – with tales of his past adventures around the camp fire at night.

The people in this village place great stock in stories – moral tales of suffering and honour that prove the worth of the teller. He can’t join them in the storytelling, and he sees the latent mistrust in the eyes of some of the men. After all, how can he prove himself if he has no stories to support his claims to be an honourable man? At night, lying in bed with nothing to distract him from the turmoil of his thoughts, he wonders that as well.

And yet, he knows that if he could only remember, then he would be as great a storyteller as Shamda. He drinks in all the stories he can, begging Shamda to tell them again and again, as if he were one of the children. Sometimes when he listens he closes his eyes, and the words spark off fragments of his own. Thoughts of epic journeys without context, missing both beginning and end. He writes out Shamda’s stories late into the night, until the candles burn low and he can no longer see the blurry letters in front of his face.

They ask him why he is so insistent that the stories be transcribed onto paper, when there is no-one around to read them. Shamda’s tribe has a strong oral tradition, and he has been told time and time again that the point of the story is that they are told, the lesson embellished and improved with every telling.

He smiles at that, replying simply that storytelling and mythology is one of the primary motivations for cultural development, though he has no idea how he could possibly know that, and he’s not even all that certain what a myth is.

But for all that he has no idea where he came from, he has a strong imagination, and he can invent a tale as easily as anyone else. While the adults are working, he excites the children with tales of gods and goddesses, fanciful stories of love and loss. At first, it occurred to him that he might be remembering instead of inventing, but the tales are too fanciful, too unbelievable, and he has long since given up the hope that he might be remembering some small part of his former existence.

They call him Arum, and though he answers to the name out of necessity, from the knowledge that they have to call him something, he can’t bring himself to embrace those four letters as anything that encompasses who he is. Shamda has suggested more than once that he look upon his awakening in the forest as some form of rebirth, an opportunity to cast aside that which has been forgotten and concentrate on making a new life for himself, but he can’t bring himself to do that, either. Arum is not who he is, not who he has grown to become. The name both welcomes him into the village and sets him apart at the same time. It is a small sign that they are prepared to adopt him as his own, he will always be the Naked One, the one who is vulnerable, who can conceal nothing about his own past because he knows nothing about it, and every time he hears the word he remembers his first waking moments, and the terrifying realisation that he knew nothing, and no-one. 

Not even himself.

He has another reason for writing down the stories. They give him a focus, something to distract him from the realities of his situation. Working late into the night means that he doesn’t have to stare idly up at the stars, wondering just what he has lost. Usually, when he finally forces himself to tumble into bed, he’s too exhausted to dream.

The dreams are what he lies about, the secret he’s kept from the village as fiercely as one would protect a first born son.

In his dreams, he remembers – flashes of memory that make no sense and have no meaning. He dreams of seeing stars from the inside, of flying, of walking between worlds as easily as if they were nothing but stepping stones in a pond.

He dreams of people he’s never met, with faces that he can’t see. Even then they are merely impressions – silver grey hair, a serpent bathed in gold. Green clothes, buildings made of stone that stand higher than anything he’s seen since the tribe found him, and of looking down on them with nothing but a thin railing between him and oblivion.

The flashes mean nothing to him, and he can make no sense of them, even though he’s written down everything he’s ever dreamed, staring down at the words as if sheer force of will could force him to remember.

It never does.

But there are other dreams as well, other impressions that come to him only in dreams, and these are the ones that make him fear that what he yearns for may actually happen, that make him afraid his memory might yet return.

He dreams of death, of searing pain, of loss and grief so overwhelming that he wakes screaming out words he doesn’t understanding, and names he’s never heard.

There is anger there too, hatred that threatens to consume him even now, even when the focus of that rage has long since been forgotten. It scares him that he could hate so much, especially when he can’t remember the reason why.

Last night he dreamt of running through a forest, a small piece of metal in his hand that smelled of death. In the dream he stopped behind a tree, waited silently as footsteps approached and then, as the sounds drew closer, stepped out and calmly fired. The figure in front of him fell, and the relief he felt in the dream was enough to startle him awake.

What kind of person had he been if he could find pleasure in causing the death of another?

He blows out his candle, crossing over to the makeshift bed and closing his eyes to the darkness. The dreams mean little to him, he can’t make sense of them because he has no reference with which to read them, but still he can’t shake the conviction that someone did this to him, that his memories were stolen for a reason.

He knows he has no basis for that belief, but nor does he have any reason to believe that the silver hair has any relevance to who he once was, and yet he is as certain of that as he is that the sun will rise in the morning. Someone took his past away from him, stopping him from remembering what it was he had done that was so wrong. He is being punished for something, of that he is quite sure.

And if the man he once was could find pleasure in pain, he is not sure that he ever wants to know.


End file.
